Nodding Over Coffee

^“I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”

--Philippians 1:6 NRSV

In recent weeks, I’ve been listening to music again.  For some years, I’ve been glued to the news and I resisted listening to music, because I didn’t want to stop and think.  Slowing down might mean I’d miss some breaking news alert (as if waiting 30 minutes changes anything).  Yet, the maddening sameness of life under threat of COVID-19 has left me tired of the same daily news of deaths, lack of PPE, and government dysfunction.  So, I’m listening to music again.

On my old clunky pre-touchscreen IPod, I have thousands of songs.  Among them are the beautiful words of the singer-songwriter Mark Heard.  Heard died in 1992, and had he lived he certainly would have been better known.  His music circulated amidst Contemporary Christian and folk music; yet he was way too honest to fit in Contemporary Christian music and defied the simplistic beliefs and theology of that genre.  At his death, he was beginning to be touted by folk and country artists like 

Bruce Cockburn, Emmy Lou Harris, and Buddy and Julie Miller. 

I only knew of Heard, because I went to college a few hours from Nashville and had friends who were way more into music than I was.  He talked about God and the big questions of life, so my conservative Christian self didn’t feel guilty for listening to him, but the longing and the brutal honesty of his music spoke to me in ways that felt dangerous but tantalizing.  Over the years as my faith changed I long ago dropped the needless division of sacred vs. secular music, but Heard’s honest words about the sacred and the profane are ones I have kept close by.

All the unsaid words that I might be thinking
And all the little signs that I might give you
They would not be enough
No they would not be enough

So we nod over coffee and say goodbye
Smile over coffee and turn to go
We know the drill and we do it well
We love it, we hate it
Ain't that life

Ain't that the curse of the second hand
Ain't that the way of the hour and the day

In his 1991 song, “Nod Over Coffee,” Heard acknowledges the unending routines of life, jobs, family responsibilities and even sitting in traffic, keep us from making time to say all we went to say to those whom we love.  How does one express the deep ineffable feelings one has when that cursed second hand reveals we are late for work yet again?  At middle age with two teenagers at home, I feel like I am waking from a long dream consisting of nothing but family and work responsibilities, and now I’m looking at the calendar and wondering where all those years, months and days went?  I always thought there would be more time to say what needed to be said.

The dam of time cannot hold back
The dust that will surely come of these bones
And I'm sure I will not have loved enough
Will not have loved enough

If we could see with wiser eyes
What is good and what is sad and what is true
Still it would not be enough
Could never be enough

So we nod over coffee and say goodbye
Bolt the door it's time to go
Into the car with the radio on
Roll down the window and blow the horn

Ain't that the curse of the second hand
Ain't that the way of the hour and the day

I suspect Heard is right that there will never be enough time to express all the love I feel for my friends and family; there aren’t enough words to express everything we feel.  Besides, we are too often struggling to make sense of what we feel if not repressing our feelings all together to give voice to them.

I hold on to the faith that I don’t have to get everything right, express everything the way I might wish to or convey to those I love most how much they mean to me.  God’s grace helps me do what I cannot do my own.  Each Sunday in my benediction, I say the words, “May the grace of Christ come behind you to finish what you must leave undone.” These words are hardest to believe when someone we love dies.  When my mother died suddenly in 2018, I grieved all the things that went unsaid between us, but I move forward trusting that God somehow makes up for that.  Eternity waits for my mother and I where perhaps all that needs to be said will be somehow expressed.

In the meantime, I try to make the effort to do more than nod over coffee before “the dust that will surely come of these bones.”  I try to express in words and actions the love I feel for the ones I hold dearest.  My efforts may be inadequate to the task, but Christ comes after me with grace to do what I am unable to do.

Before the world reopens and we rush out the door each day once more, let’s do more than “nod over coffee.”  May we pick up the phone, write a text or email, Skype or Zoom, or God forbid, pick up a pen and paper to say some of what needs to be said to the ones whom we love.  After that, we trust God will eventually complete what we were trying to say all along.

Grace and Peace,

Chase